


Doors of Death

by sifshadowheart



Series: Frey of Asgard [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Frey of Asgard, Gen, M/M, Master of Death, Misleading Visions, Multi, Not Canon Compliant - The Heroes of Olympus, Prophetic Dreams, Prophetic Visions, Short Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-01 02:30:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12146709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sifshadowheart/pseuds/sifshadowheart
Summary: Short Story that takes place approximately two years after the end of Lokison.  Thanatos gets in a bind - Frey comes to the rescue.





	1. Dreams of Death

** Doors of Death **

**A Frey of Asgard Story**

By Sif Shadowheart

Disclaimer:  As always, these characters don’t belong to me (unless they’re genuine OC’s like the various Harvestmaidens and Shadow Warriors, then they are, though I’m not the first to give them that title) but rather sprang from the glorious minds of J.K. Rowling and Rick Riordan.  This is merely a work of fan-authored fiction with no monetary benefit gained from its creation.

_“The one who adapts his policy to the times prospers, and likewise that the one whose policy clashes with the demands of the times does not.”_

_Niccolo Machiavelli_

A reminder of where we last left Frey and Co.:

After defeating Kronus and the Titanomachy, and receiving their rewards, Frey turned over his mantle as the “Camp Leader/General” to Percy, with plan to spend a great deal of time with his children, especially given the new “great prophecy” as delivered by Rachel Dare which reads as follows:

_Seven half-bloods shall answer the call._ __  
To storm or fire, the world must fall.  
An oath to keep with the final breath,  
As foes bear arms to the Doors of Death.

Now, as Frey has been in England with Draco, Blaise, their kids etc. for the last couple years, he’s completely unaware that the new prophecy is, in fact, in progress.

Percy and Annabeth started dating after the end of _Lokison_ ; and Luke and Silena eventually welcomed they baby girl, naming her Elpis after the spirit of hope which had refused to desert man when given the chance at freedom by Pandora’s folly, with the middle name of Hermione for Luke’s father Hermes, and making Frey her godfather grimace every time her mother called her by her first name, as with time and the lack of a war hanging over their heads, Luke and Hermes had finally mended their relationship, though they would never be as close as Frey and Loki.

Author’s Note: The Heroes of Olympus is where this takes place as far as stories go, but I’m not going to scratch much beyond the surface of the series since this is supposed to be a short story that helps bridge the time between _Lokison_ and the events of the movie Thor.  I recommend you read it, but you really don’t have to in order to understand the small pieces I use to shove Frey back into action – even for just a little while.

**_The kids: Antioch, Asterion, and Frija are approximately six-or-seven years old when this story begins._ **

And because I know I’m going to get asked this question _a lot_ here is the current reading-order for the current posted fics in this Frey of Asgard saga: Lokison, Doors of Death, (unposted fic), That was Tingly, (unposted/events of Thor fic).

After that massive intro… _here we go!_

 

**One**

**Dreams of Death**

_Frey dreamed_.

_But it wasn’t a normal dream, not even for someone like him, a godling, the son of Loki and legacy of Thanatos, once deemed the “Greatest Hero of the Age” before the Olympian Council._

_For he saw a faceless woman, blind, and buried in dirt._

_And then he saw her open her mouth, and Death herself emerged and swallowed the world whole._

…

Frey started awake, jerking upright and rubbing his hands over his face with a sigh when he recognized where he was.

“Peverell Castle.”  He murmured with a tone of being a rote, practiced activity – and giving voice to the toll the recurring dreamed have had upon him.  “Master’s Tower, the Master’s Suite, Master’s Bedroom.”

The words tripped off his tongue like the address for a Hogwarts letter, anchoring him in the _now_ and less in the strange mish-mash of past and present and dream that had been his waking moments for weeks.

Loki still came to visit him in dreams, though now that Frey was older – and his freezing into his immortality came closer, as well as the day his children would leave for school – he would just as often walk the paths between worlds as his father had begun to teach him once Asgard has well and truly lost interest in him now that he was “settled” into life as a father and the Lord of Houses Peverell, Black, and Potter.

Sirius had official turned over the title to him not long after the face-off with Kronus, on Frey’s twenty-first birthday to be exact, washing his hands of the sticky mess of politics until either his “grandpups” grew up or Frey Ascended and had to leave for the Yggdrasil/Cosmic multiverse.

Frey dreaded and anticipated that day in equal measures.

With his power, it wasn’t as if his children, or their children, or their children’s children would ever be too far away for him to be a presence in their lives, and with his reward for fighting Kronus and helping to slay the bastard he didn’t have to even worry about Odin or some other miserable old bastard trying to use any of them against him or harming them in any way.

Still.

As he’d come to learn, and as Loki had grown to enjoy laughing his ass off with snorts of “Payback is a _bitch_ , my little prince,” a father worries.

And with the recurring dream – always nearly the same with little variation – he’d come to think them portents, omens, rather than the wanderings of a – frankly – bored mind.

Don’t get him wrong…he loved his children.

His lovers, to which he’d added Apollo not long after New York, were as wonderful and drool-worthy as always.

It wasn’t their fault – either his lovers or his children – that he felt something was, well, _missing_.

Even with Loki stepping up his training once again as he grew more powerful and his divine parentage was harder to hide, or the frequent visits to the alternate Earth in the Universe Cosmic to delve into whatever shenanigans his “uncles” Fenrir and Jormangandr schemed up or run his interests there, he felt something…lacking in his life.

A something that whenever he mentioned it to his Far, he was told would fade – at least in part – when he froze into his immortality.

“It’s your very being _yearning_ for what is meant to be yours, my son.”  Loki had advised him.  “Holding up the sky – while admirable and right at the time – cost you in your development.  You were supposed to have become immortal already, and your _self_ knows this.  Your soul, if you want to be precise.  It wants what it its to be and have and protect.  Immortality, godhood,” Loki waved a hand with a knowing grin.  “And whatever mate or mates you might have been gifted by the Norns.  Until you have them all – that emptiness in you will never go away.  That said.”  The god of Mischief arched a brow.  “There’s no shame to be found in trying to fill it with your gorgeous lovers or parenting your children or even those insane adventures you used to go on.  Just know what it is you yearn for, lest you fall into the trap that nearly ensnared me of trying to fill it with the _wrong_ things.”

That was the closest Loki ever got to telling his son just _how_ close he came to walking down a much darker path before he heard the prayers of one of his rare acolytes in the Olympian universe asking to be blessed with a child, a child who through their pact had grown into so much more than the foretold destroyer of Voldemort.

…

“Daddy!”  Frey’s little princess and future Lady Potter Frija cried out as she watched as he stepped elegantly from the Floo into Malfoy Manor.

With the children getting older – and the addition of Draco and Blaise’s two sons, one a year since they married a couple years ago, one future Lord Malfoy named Scorpius Draco…though most just called him Scor or Scorp to Draco’s ire…and a future Master Zabini named Maximilian “Max” Blaise Zabini – plus the aforementioned marriage, Draco, Blaise and the kids had all moved from Peverell Castle into Malfoy Manor with Draco’s parents who along with the House Elves kept keep track of the five little ones…which had the Weasley Twins cracking more than one joke after all the hell Draco gave them over being from an infamously-large family over the years they’d been friends with “Harry.”

Frey had a suite of rooms here, but tried not to stay there too much for all that as far as Draco and Blaise were concerned – not to mention the kids – it was where he belonged…right there with them.

It wasn’t as easy at that for Frey, who counted every day he had with his children close to his heart in one hand and feared the day he’d have to move permanently to his father’s multiverse with the other.

Still, Frey was there every night for dinner, and baths, and bedtime stories, not to mention lunchtime tales about their “playgroup” of other young witches and wizards that was supposed to help give them connections and friends they could count on when they were older and took their places in the running of Wizarding Great Britain when he could get away from the dusty halls of the Wizengamot.

As it was, Frey rarely showed up this early at the Manor, but forgot his worries about overstepping in the needs to remind his heart that his nightmares were merely dreams and his children were safe from all that would harm them.

So his picked up his little princess, tucking her close to his hip and enjoying her innocent scent of sugar cookies and children’s sculpting clay and dirt.

“How are you today, Princess?”  He asked as his sons darted into the Floo reception area from the hall, summoned better than any spell at the sound of their sister’s shriek.

For some reason they had never quite figured out, Frija was always the first to know when Frey was coming and ready to meet him when he arrived – no matter how – unless she was already tucked into bed or under the watchful eyes of her Grandperé who did not approve of young ladies running like poor hooligans.

That didn’t stop the boys from getting their share of Daddy-time, Asterion and Antioch slamming into his legs and grabbing hold with the utmost faith that no matter how big or strong they got, their daddy was bigger and stronger.

Going down to one knee, Frey used his arm not cradling Frija to help Antioch into scrabbling onto his back, then stood with Asterion taking his place on his other hip.

Were he a mortal, this would be a problem with three children weighing approximately forty pounds each, unless the father in question was in quite good shape.

However, Frey wasn’t mortal, and saying he was in “quite good shape” would be a vast understatement of the slabs of muscle built and maintained by both genetics and his training and lifestyle from a young age.

Being six-foot six-inches in height probably helped…just a lot.

…

Sometime later, Draco ducked in to the children’s playroom to summon them for dinner, doing away with the former “tradition” of having House Elves fetch children when they were wanted…and minding them when they were _not_.

His childhood was loving, of that there was no doubt, but it was also filled with stiff formality as “expected of a Malfoy.”

Frey would never have stood for Draco raising their children the same, even if his own childhood was anything but conventional being raised by a Harvestmaiden and a centaur at a place dedicated to training heroes.

Which to Draco’s mind they’d done far too good of a job with when it came to his ex-husband.

For all his cunning and intelligence, far too often Draco felt Frey, or “Harry” as he was still known to most of Wizarding Great Britain, put himself in harm’s way and showed a shocking lack of self-preservation instincts.

_Very_ un-Slytherin for a wizard with that great founder’s blood in his veins from his Peverell heritage…but very in keeping with his likewise Gryffindor heritage, a dichotomy that Draco would wager Frey’s father Loki also possessed in large amounts given the tales of his father’s “adventures” with Thor he would sometimes tell Draco and Blaise after one too many firewhiskeys.

To no surprise, Draco found his ex-husband rolling around on the ground like a hooligan, teaching their children as well as Draco’s two boys from his marriage to Blaise – only two thus far anyway, Blaise was of a mind to have a daughter as well, being rather enamored with Frija – the basics of grappling and hand-to-hand under the guise of “play.”  Frey taught like he’d been taught – constantly.  A nature walk could just as easily turn into a lesson on herbology or survivalism as it could Defense or Constant Vigilance.

But ooh, how the children _learned_.

Just like they _also_ tended to learn their Papa’s (or Uncle Harry’s in the case of Scorpius and little Maximilian, who even at just over a year old was never excluded) bad habits…like his dirty mouth that used to turn Draco on and now more often than not landed him in hot water over the latest “gem” of profanity the kids would pick up from him.

Draco cracked a grin as Frey finally managed to win against the five children, corralling all of them in a line between his outstretched arms and taking turns turning them hysterical with giggles as he “tickle-tortured” them one by one.

“How long did it take to subdue the fierce forces of the Dark this time, Scarhead?”  The seeming-insult was said with a good dose of humor as Draco propped one shoulder against the doorframe and folded his arms against a chest that had eventually filled out, making him not as lithe and more in keeping with his father’s strong build.  That said, he _still_ looked like a whispy little thing next to Frey…the bloody giant.  Well…Jotun…same thing.

“ _Père_!”  His little Lord Black protested, storm grey eyes flashing with indignation.  “We’re not forces of the Dark!”

“Oh no?”  Draco arched a knowing brow as Frey shoved down his snickers.  “Then I suppose you don’t want to go spend time with Grandpa Siri to learn more about the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black…a _Dark_ house?”

It was a constant struggle – even still years after the last clash of the Blood Wars – to destigmatize Dark witches and wizards.

Frey – and their children – were a key component in that fight, with “Harry” declaring himself and his Wizengamot seats as Neutral for the first time since his grandfather Charlus had held them, before James switched them over to the Light faction.  It was a scandal, as not only did he move the Potter and Peverell seats back to Neutral, once Sirius turned the Black seat over to Frey he’d moved it from the Neutral status Cousin Sirius had designated it back to Dark…as it had always been prior.  Earth-shaking according to the news, but it had only taken one interview with the _Prophet_ to squash rumors of their “beloved Savior going Dark.”

And yet still, do to the prevalent prejudice of the Wizarding World that had seeped into their education system at every level – _fuck you Dumbledore –_ unless they wanted to tutor their children and keep them separate from others their age, they _still_ had to remind Asterion especially as the Heir Black that it was perfectly acceptable to be a Dark Wizard.

Draco’s Cousin Sirius actually helped with that quite a bit, as did his mate – a Dark Creature as a werewolf – Remus Lupin.

Though Blaise – and by extension Draco once his husband pointed it out – never got over that Sirius was married to a wizard named “Wolf Wolf the Werewolf” once you broke it down.

Remus’s jab the first time Blaise had cracked a joke about it in his pretense about it being no funnier that his husband’s name of “Dog Black the Black Dog” thanks to their nicknames.

Both of which, if the hysterical laughter from Frey were any indicator, were hilarious once pointed out.

Asterion – and all the kids – _adored_ the goofy pair of canines, though Frija tended to drift more towards “Uncle Sev” than the others…which as she looked more than a little like her grandmother Lily simply made the dark and dangerous wizard melt into a pile of mushy goo.

“Grandpa Siri!”  Five little voices cried in pure joy – though Max and Scor’s were a little garbled as toddlers – Frey chuckling and ruffling hair before gathering up the two littlest to help them get ready for lunch after a quick Tempus filled him in on what brought Draco searching, his three trailing after him like ducklings.

“Works every time.”  He murmured to Draco as they passed him, the consummate Slytherin giving him a smirk in response before pushing off the wall to bring up the rear and supervise handwashing for their so-very-independent triplets.

…

Many splashes and a few Scourgifys later, Draco and Frey had the kids lined up at the main “family” dining room.

Blaise and Lucius were both off with work, and Narcissa out with her “ladies who lunch” of high society friends group leaving the two adults who regularly had time dealing with lunch for the little ones.

Draco, because as a Potions Master after serving his apprenticeship under Severus could make his own hours, and Frey since as he spent his time _not_ in the halls of the Wizengamot consulting with either the Auror office or teaching at Camp Half-Blood did the same, though it had been awhile since he’d done the latter thanks to the gods supplying Camp with more funds due to the influx of half-bloods in the wake of their promise to Percy being kept and Luke and Silena, as well as a handful of other veterans of the Second Great War making it their home, either commuting into the city or teaching at the Camp like Luke and Silena had both chosen to do.

“Alright my minions.”  Frey gave a mock-cackle and rubbed his hands together.  “Who wants to start today?”

“Me!”

“I do!”

“Me, Daddy, me!”

“Mah!”  Even little Max got in on the chorus.

“Hmm…I don’t know.”  Frey frowned rubbing his chin.  It was a common routine, this little play during lunch as the other times of meals Lucius was usually home and as the Lord of the Manor took care of beginning the offerings to the gods.  “What do you say, Draco?”

Draco heaved a sigh as five pairs of hopeful eyes shot towards him, humming in consideration.

“I believe it is Antioch’s turn to begin.”  He finally said, with a smile for the good-natured pouts that covered the other children’s faces, Max and Scorpious not quite getting why the others called out or why they should be disappointed but copying their elders nonetheless.  “Antioch?”

Their oldest child – even if only by a few moments – brightened and straightened his shoulders proudly, then studied his plate carefully to select _just_ the right thing to offer.

The House Elves had been instructed by a stern Frey at one point – once the kids got old enough to realize the difference – that they were all to get exactly the same portions as each other, with the same food that the adults were eating, which today meant they had triangles of roast beef on rye sandwiches, a small salad, and some fresh fruit.

Antioch selected a triangle of sandwich and a couple plump berries and tossed them – rather gleefully – into the small lit brazier that was warded against being knocked over or having flesh singed by the flames, saying:

“To Lord Thanatos, an’ Lord Loki, an’ Lady Frigga.”

That was the signal, and his siblings followed suit, though they each had an order they liked to go in – and every once and a while would toss in an extra name from the stories their Papa would tell them.

Today that extra was for Lady Hestia, one of Frija’s favorite characters for all that she wasn’t as fierce or loud as the others, she’d helped their Papa beat the mean Titan and that was important.

“To Lord Loki.”  Draco murmured, giving over a tip of the wine in his glass and a sandwich halve, the elves making sure he had an extra, Frey echoing his actions, only with the cider he preferred with his noon meal.

…

“…and then with a great roar, Grover summoned the power of the Lord of the Wild and loosed a Panic!”  Frey gave a roar in example – though his had much less bray than the satyr in question’s had had – hands spread wide as he pantomimed his way through the story of the Battle of the Labyrinth – one of the children’s favorites…though he tended to leave out the end where he used his magic to garrott a large number of enemy forces.

Maybe he would add that in when they were older.

Leaning in the doorway once more, only this time joined by Blaise as Frey was about to cast the Levicorpus on the enemy, his husband wrapping his arms around the silver-haired wizard and resting his chin on the inch-shorter man’s shoulder.

“Labyrinth?”  Blaise whispered as they watched the bedtime ritual being carried out.

All five of the children shared the massive – after all expansion charms were a cinch for a witch as accomplished as Narcissa Black-Malfoy – Malfoy Manor nursey, as was tradition.

Each of them would receive their own rooms upon turning eleven and receiving their Hogwarts letters, but for now, all five got to enjoy Frey’s vivid tales of heroics and pranks and carefully-hidden life-lessons.

On Draco’s nights the tales were usually wizarding traditions or family histories hidden in them, and Blaise preferred the ageless stand-by of Beedle the Bard.

Bedtime belonged to just the parents and the children, while naptime stories were the purview of grandparents or “Uncle Sev” or whatever friend of one of them was visiting and up for the task.

But bedtimes were theirs…for however much longer the children still wanted bedtime stories.

Which would probably last until they went to Hogwarts and discovered the joys of puberty and all the hormone overload brought with it.

…

“You don’t look well.”  Lucius commented with his usual blunt criticism.

_Harry_ might be the son of his Lord and Patron, but he’d still broken his Draco’s heart – at least a little – and would eventually break those of his grandchildren when they were told the truth of him.

Those two realities made things between the pair…chilly at the best of times, though that had never stopped him from offering aid when required – and his honor demanded, given _Harry’s_ parentage.

“Nightmares.”  Was all Frey said in reply, taking no offense to the tone, knowing full-well what caused it.

Filling a glass from a gleaming crystal decanter, Frey swirled the rich cognac in his palm, enjoying the bouquet after tipping a bit into the fire with a “for you, Lady Hestia” before standing to stare into the flames with one arm resting on the mantle.

The flames flared a far deeper and richer red for a moment, then returned to normal, and Frey was filled with a warmth for that moment that had nothing to do with the fire or the excellent vintage he was sipping on.

Wizards and witch traded concerned glances, all of them familiar with the sort of dreams Frey tended to have…especially those that were recurring.

He wasn’t a Seer – not hardly – and wasn’t nearly as clairvoyant as he’d said his friends Percy and the new Lady Luna Longbottom were, but still…he had power.

And sometimes that manifested in _hints_.

“Anything we should prepare for?”  Narcissa asked with her calm pragmatism, only to be shocked stiff by the haunted look in deep green eyes as he turned his head just a fraction away from the flames.

“No.”  He whispered, though it carried to all of them easily.  “I still have hope that these are just bad dreams…for if they’re _not_ …”  He trailed off and then faced the fire once more before continuing.  “There won’t be anything to come after to prepare _for_.”

Well.  Narcissa knocked back the rest of her elven wine and held out the glass to her husband for a refill.  That was nothing less than ominous.

…

 


	2. Two

** Doors of Death **

**_A Frey of Asgard Story_ **

**Two**

**Chains of Death**

_Frey dreamed._

_A woman – more, a being – her eyes covered and her body submerged in the earth rolled and tossed, while in the distance a pair of massive iron-banded doors loomed, inky black chains dripping from them and binding a figure to its knees before them._

_The figure opened its fathomless mouth, empty eye sockets lit with endless flames and the weight of all the worlds, and cried:_

_“Rise, rise, rise!”_

_Out of the dust at its feet, and the dirt of the buried being’s earth, monsters and giants and Titans formed, marching in sync towards the doors, their steps jerky and stiff._

_“Rise, rise, rise!”_

_Rise_

_Rise_

_RISE!_

_…_

“…Frey! Frey!”  A hand shook him, the godling flailing a bit.  “Frey, rise!”

Groggy and feeling more than a bit hungover from the latest incarnation of his doomsday dream, Frey rubbed at his eyes and blinked, trying to place where – and more importantly _when_ – he was.

For good reason, as the person who had woken him from his dreams was someone he hadn’t woken to in _years_.

“Heidi?”  He checked, still blinking in disbelief, even when the beautiful blonde smiled that same soft-warm smile that she’d given him for years when she was his main caretaker.  He shook his head as she came to sit beside him on the edge of the bed, paying no mind to the silk sheets and soft quilt – one she’d made him nonetheless – pooled at his hips as he sat up, revealing his scars and tattoo.

Frey needed no glamours, not here, with her.

Captain Heidi Lothbrok was the only mother he’d truly known after all, though Lily still often starred in his better dreams of days before a monster came knocking on All Hallows Eve.

A Harvestmaiden, one of Thanatos’s version of Valkyries, she served him in his aspect of the Harvest Lord, walking the battle fields of the world and collecting the most worthy to be taken to Elysium or the Isle of the Blest.

When a Harvestmaiden collected a soul, they disappeared in gold and purple dust invisible to mortal eyes, though seen by those of divine or magical blood, gold for the Harvest Lord and purple to denote their status as a worthy soul.

A soul like Zoe Nightshade, who Heidi had collected herself in thanks for the Huntress for helping her “little Lord” in the fight against Kronus.

“Hello again, my little lord.”  Heidi smiled, happy to see him so well – and not on a battlefield while she was fulfilling her duties to her Lord either for once.

“What’re you doing here?”  He asked, rubbing one hand through his long tousled hair.  Over the years it had grown to cascade fully down his back, though given that his Far was a shapeshifter he could change it if he really wanted to, Loki focusing on teach him that particular skill in the last year as a precaution against them looking _too_ much alike if Asgard ever regained its interest in the doings of their pet “Warrior-Mage.”

“I wish I could say I’ve come to visit and spend time with your heirs.”  Heidi told him ruefully.  “Unfortunately…”

“Yeah.”  Frey heaved a sigh.  “That’s what I was afraid of, with the dreams I’ve been having for months now anyway.  Though when I hadn’t heard anything from Camp or Olympus I thought it was just my mind coming up with new and inventive ways to present old traumas.”

“Have you tried to talk to either place recently?”  Heidi arched a knowing brow as Frey’s forehead crumpled in thought before giving way to confusion.  “I’d thought not.  Someone powerful has closed off Olympus and most of the States from communicating with the outside world.  And since you live _here_ and not _there_ now…”

Frey groaned, cursing in his head.

“I was affected as well, even with my connections to both places.”  He finished, leaning forward to lock eyes with her.  “What do you need from me?”

“Lord Thanatos has gone missing.”  Heidi told him with no further preamble.  “And with recent events we – both the Harvestmaidens and the Shadow Warriors – fear that it is much more _dire_ than him being trapped with the other gods on Olympus, who seem to be experiencing some sort of splitting effect between their Greek and Roman natures.”

“Ouch.”  Frey winced.  Now he was rather glad that he hadn’t been on Olympus when it’d gotten locked down.  The Romans, while more… _militant_ and disciplined than their Greek selves, were also a lot less fun…and a lot more likely to take offense at his – a Norse godling – presence among them.  “That’s…not a good sign considering the dreams I’ve been having.”

“What dreams?”  Heidi leaned forward, eyes focused and intent.

As far as reaching out for help, there was no one better they could seek than Frey with his fondness for several of them and being a confirmed legacy of their Lord.

“You first.”  He shot back with a playful smirk.  “What recent events?”

Heidi’s face took on a look that sobered him instantly.

“Monsters and giants are coming up from the Underworld in droves, their numbers unprecendented and their reformation rates verging on almost immediate.”  Her tone was dire, as was her expression.  “But no one thus far as figured out how or why, though we _do_ know from traversing the battle fields that a group of heroes have set out to right the situation.”

“Seven half-bloods shall answer the call.”  Frey repeated Rachel’s first prophecy – a new Great Prophecy – as the Oracle of Delphi.  Climbing from the bed with zero issued of modesty – Heidi had changed his nappies for crying out loud – he clothed himself in his armor with a flick of his fingers, another braiding back his hair while a third had a spear and his favorite sword, still the one he’d used to slay the basilisk though he had an inkling from things his father had said in dreams that Loki had something special up his sleeve for when Frey finally froze into his immortality, coming at once to his hands.  Adding the sword belt to his armor with practiced hands, he turned back to face a bemused Heidi.  “…and foes bear arms to the Doors of Death.”

“You don’t even know where to begin.”  She told him.  “I haven’t told you where the mentioned _Doors of Death_ are located –“

“On the mortal side they’re in the Necromanteion, also called the House of Hades, a temple in Greece.”  Frey rattled off to an eyebrow raise from his former-nanny.  “Sorry,” he shrugged sheepishly.

“It’s alright.”  She smirked at him.  “Though you’re not too old to take over my knee for cheek, my little lord.”

“Yes’m.”

“Good.”  She nodded.  “The Doors on the mortal plain aren’t the problem – it’s that with Lord Thanatos missing we can’t locate where they are in the Underworld.”

Frey snorted a bit under his breath, already having a damn good idea of how to locate them, and said – much more politely than his earlier interruption:

“Have all of the Harvestmaidens and Shadow Warriors go to the Necromanteion and guard it.  Continue to allow anyone who enters the Doors to come through – simply slaughter anything that isn’t an ally.”  He commanded, very much the former-General of the half-blood army.

“And how do you plan to find the other side of the Doors?”  Heidi arched a brow, able to see where his plan was heading.

“I’ll scry for Percy.”  He told her with a wry smile.

“And if that doesn’t work?”

“Then I’ll try Luke, Nico, Thalia, Grover, and Annabeth.”  _Now_ his tone could definitely be termed cheeky.  “In the exact order of how likely they are to be neck-deep in trouble at this very moment.”

Heidi had to laugh at that.

From what she knew of them…Frey wasn’t wrong on his odds.

“Very well.”  She stood with a regal nod that was ruined when she rushed over and through her arms around shoulders much larger than the last time she’d embraced her little lord.  “Be safe.”  She whispered fiercely as his strong arms wrapped around her in a feet-from-floor lifting squeeze.  “These are darker times than you know.”

Frey just nodded, and let her go, all the while thinking on the back-to-back dreams he’d been having and wagering that he had a damned good idea at that.

…

Percy and Annabeth crouched low in the shadows with “Bob the Titan” also known as Iapetus, who Percy had once dragged into the River Lethe, losing his memories in the process.

However, while still amnesiac Iapetus had befriended Nico di Angelo the son of Hades and a _spartoi_ saber-toothed kitten, the former of whom had spoken only good of Percy after they had joined forces against Kronus.

As a result, “Bob” had been willing to both save Percy and Annabeth from Kelli the empousa but also lead them to the Doors of Death.

This hadn’t been what they expected when they arrived…but considering that they were in the depths of Tartarus, perhaps they should have.

Massive metal doors that were anchored to what looked like an elevator without a shaft, the elevator chained down with a dark figure spread-eagled and bolted to the ground beside them, the doors appearing as a reversed-version of the massive Art Deco doors that led to Olympus with thick bands of Stygian Iron, the doors strained and bucked against the chains that seemed to drip with hopelessness and despair, they were so _wrong_ to their senses that even the sight of the doors being guarded by the pair of Atlas and Hyperion couldn’t draw their gazes away from the grotesque sight.

Monster after giant after creature lined up, crowding around the elevator that must function similarly to the one leading to Olympus, all mocking and jeering at the bound and bleeding form – more than one calling out its name with great disdain for “Lord Thanatos.”

“ _Thanatos.”_   Annabeth breathed with something far too close to hope for a place like this.  “Frey’s patron and progeniture.”

“Yeah.”  Percy frowned, eyes flicking from the bound elder god to the two Titans standing guard, mind busily working on a plan to get them out of Tartarus before it kills them – as it had been made more than clear during the last however-long they’d been journeying through the damned place that if you _died_ in Tartarus, _you didn’t come back_.  “He was there at the “rewarding” Council, I remember.  An elder god and one of the Avatars.  How did they manage to trap him?”

“No.”  Annabeth shook her head with more than a little frantic excitement.  “That’s not my point – though a question I would _love_ to know the answer to.  Thanatos has servants who are able to appear at his side, Frey was _raised_ and taught by them until he turned thirteen as went through his Rites of Passage.”

Percy blushed a little at the reminder of _that_ story Luke had told him over ambrosia-spiked sodas once night.

Frey’s thirteenth birthday had become something of an urban legend to the boys at Camp Half-Blood.

Annabeth rolled her eyes.

 _Men_.

“Not _that_ part.”  She scolded him.  “Seaweed Brain.  The Harvestmaidens _must_ not be able to find Lord Thanatos _here_ , probably because of those chains, or else they would have already freed him.  What do you think they’re going to do when they try and can’t come to his side, hmm?”

A slow grin spread over Percy’s face, even Bob brightening at her question.

“Maybe.”  Percy turned back around from watching Annabeth’s eyes dance in the low light of Tartarus.  “Go to the most powerful half-blood they know for help?”

“It’s what _we_ wanted to do before we found out the States were locked down.”  Annabeth shrugged.  “Somehow I imagine it’ll be a lot easier for the Harvestmaidens and their warrior counterparts to get ahold of Frey than it was for Chiron or Luke.”

“Here’s hoping.”  Percy muttered, watching Annabeth sway with weariness now that her brief excitement-born energy had waned away.  “Because we’re running out of time.”

“Running out of time for what?”

It was a whisper.

It came from behind them.

And if Frey were a little slower with silencing hexes, it would have brought the entire monster horde a few yards away down onto their heads when both Percy and Annabeth whirled, with identical shrieks of surprise.

Frey snickered, ignoring the irate looks on the couple’s faces, then with a flick of his hand – the one with the Hallows sigil branded into the wrist above it – he ended the _Silencio_.

“Frey…”  Annabeth growled, eyes flicking nervously back towards the queue for the elevator into the mortal realm, checking to see if his latest prank had had any negative effects.

Like the time he and Luke put Kool-Aid in the Aphrodite showerheads and were nearly murdered by Silena and the others for turning them tie-dyed.

Though everyone else had gotten a kick out of seeing the “perfect” Aphrodite half-bloods turned orange and green and purple, Annabeth among them.

Frey shrugged, still grinning, though his smile turned vicious and his eyes ice-cold when they flickered over their heads to the sight of his patron chained to the Tartarus ground.

“How did you know where to find us?”  Percy got them back on-track as Annabeth’s hands were still making clenching motions as if trying to develop telekinesis and wring Frey’s neck from a distance from scaring her while they were in the scariest place in several realms.

“I didn’t.”  Frey said, casually unsheathing his sword and checking the blade with a thumb then picked his spear back up from where he’d set it down to startle them.  “Heidi told me about, well, _that_.”  He jabbed the spear in the direction of Thanatos.  “Or that he was missing at least.  That combined with the Prophecy of Rachel’s gave me a starting point to reference.”  He smirked.  “Anyone hostile coming out of that elevator on the other side are about to get a most _interesting_ welcome to the mortal realm.”

Annabeth had a look of understanding cross her face but checked: “Harvestmaidens?”

“And Shadow Warriors.”  Frey agreed, shrugging his massive armored shoulders.

Percy eyed the movement with just a _smidge_ of jealousy.

Somehow in the last couple years, the big bastard of a fighter – who Percy had yet to beat… _yet_ – had gotten even fucking bigger.

Asshole.

At this point Frey put the tall Hermes half-bloods to shame, and made the bulkier Ares and Hephaestus campers look puny.

What did those Harvestmaidens _feed_ him growing up?

The souls of the damned-and-massive?

“Anyway…”  Frey drawled.  “I didn’t bother looking for Thanatos if they couldn’t find him…I looked for Percy.”

Annabeth coughed quietly to cover a snicker at the blush on her boyfriend’s face at _that_ gem.

The sad part was, Frey was being honest.

And it was exactly in keeping with how most people who knew about Percy acted: when shit went down, they looked for him first.

Being a trouble magnet was part of the job description as a child of the “elder gods.”

She’s bet – and would’ve won if she’d asked – that Thalia was also near the top of the list along with Nico if looking for Frey didn’t work, as well as Luke since “trouble” was part of the Hermes half-blood motto.

Though she would’ve been surprised – and a bit offended – to learn that _she_ had also made the list of possible suspects for being involved.

Not that it wasn’t _true_.

“You do tend to be at the center of things the last couple years, Seaweed Brain.”  Annabeth said with an apologetic smile when her boyfriend glared at her a little for laughing.

Over the years, what had started as a mocking nickname had developed into one of serious affection, so he rarely took offense anymore.

Percy and Annabeth, both looking run-down and ready to pass out into heaps of exhausted goo, turned towards Frey, standing there both tall and strong and fresh from the mortal realm, like he was the answer to every prayer they’d spent the last days making to their parents – or any other god who might be listening – for help.

Frey’s reaction to their hope-shining faces was very mixed.

Part of him – what he liked to call the wizard or mortal part – had an instinctual flinch back from it.

While the rest of him – a part that grew the older and closer to Ascending he became – reveled in it like his father was wont to do in any sort of attention…before he’d had Frey anyway.

Hermes had had more than one story to share about Loki’s “acting out phase” and how he would nearly roll around like a puppy at any attention from Odin or Thor or even Thor’s friends.

As the Messenger, the god of Thieves had been exposed most often to the underpinnings of other universes…and wasn’t shy about giving Frey heaps of blackmail on his old man once Luke’s father had finally figured it out for himself.

“What’s the plan?”  Percy asked in near-perfect echo of Frey’s question to him years before in a quiet shifting of the leadership of Camp Half-Blood from one hero to another.

That had been Percy’s time – here, _now_ , in this place?

The son of Poseidon had zero problem letting the legacy of Thanatos take the reins of the situation.

“Those chains Gaea forged – we are facing Gaea right?”  Frey checked.  He assumed so from the visions he’d been plagued by but wanted to make sure.

“Uh huh.”  Percy nodded, arching a brow while Annabeth just shook her head in exasperation.

Only Frey would jump into a fight without even knowing the enemy.

Well…Frey, probably Percy and/or Luke neither of whom had a real sense of self-preservation, and all of the Ares half-bloods…but for the sake of argument they didn’t count since their impulse control was practically nil when it came to a promised bloodbath.

“Right.”  Frey jerked his head towards the chains.  “I can read enough of those runes from here to know I can’t break them – no half-blood can.”  Gaea, like her son Kronus, knew better than to underestimate half-bloods, though that hadn’t saved _him_ in the end and Frey wouldn’t allow it to save her either.  “Uh, Bob, was it?”  Frey checked after a quick Legilimancy scan…just to avoid any unpleasant surprises.

A _nice_ Titan in Tartarus, who would’ve thought it?

“You could.”  Frey continued.  “If we give you a distraction, would you?”

“Break just the chains on the doors?”  Iapetus checked.  “Or on the god too?”

“Thanatos first.”  Frey clarified.  “Once he’s freed he’ll be able to summon the Shadow Warriors…and the rest will take care of itself after that.”  He gave a grim look towards the steadily-weakening Percy and Annabeth.  “But if need be I want you two to pile into that elevator and don’t look back.  We’ll take care of ourselves down here, clear?”

“But…”  Percy started to protest only to click his mouth shut at one look at Annabeth who was struggling to stay on her feet.  “Yeah, we’re clear.”

“Excellent.”  Frey nodded.  “I’m going to cast a mass Stupify, it will work on most of the monsters and creatures but likely the giants and definitely the wonder twins over there,” he jerked his chin towards the two Titan guards.  “Won’t be effective.  We make a raucous, get you two into the elevator if need be, and above all:” he grinned a bit.  “Don’t get killed.”

Both half-bloods rolled their eyes a bit at this weak attempt at gallows humor, before shifting into place and drawing the weapons that had either made it with them or they’d managed to scavenge in the – days? Weeks? – that they’d been in Tartarus.

“Annabeth.”  Frey whispered a quiet reminder.  “Hat.”

Tucking her invisibility cap over her forehead and activating it, she disappeared from sight.

A good thing both of her companions would agree, given that she was the most wounded – and the most at risk of being _lost_ if anything were to happen.

“Bob.”  Frey nodded to the Titan.  “Go.  Act natural and then as fast as you can once you get over to Thanatos.”

The Titan rose to his great height and swaggered out of the shadows and through the crowd, and the moment he was clear bodies began to drop as he lunged and took the first chain in his massive hands, his saber-toothed skeleton cat keeping the others back even as Atlas and Hyperion took notice and charged.

They didn’t make it far before stopping dead in their tracks at the two figures that darted out to meet them.

“Hi boys.”  Frey drawled with dancing eyes and a devil-may-care grin on his face.  “Miss us?”

Iapetus worked faster than Frey had expected, and the Doors gave an ominous rumble as he wrenched the last chain free of Thanatos, then with a roar tore the bolts that had been pinning the elder god to Tartarus’s ground away in a flurry of golden ichor.

It left Frey with a serious dilemma as he faced off against Atlas, Percy and Annabeth harrying Hyperion as best they could in a place where water – one of the keys to Percy’s power though not the sum of them by any means – was scarce.

“Annabeth!”  Percy cried in agony as the demigoddess crumpled to the ground at a fiery-fisted blow from Hyperion, green eyes flicking between the Doors and the teens in concern.

“She’s running out of time!”  Frey yelled, the clang of his spear – thrown with all his strength – knocking Hyperion’s sword from his hand and sending it flying startling Percy out of his confused rage.  “Take her and go!”  Whirling he blocked a strike from Atlas, knocking the Titan back as Iapetus took on the giants alone, who had – finally – realized that they were in danger and that the Titan was an enemy.  “Iapetus!”  He commanded, “press the button!”

Percy, worry over Frey and Annabeth at war, finally swept up his love and carried her into the just opening doors, hitting the only button as “Bob” kept a finger pressed to the trigger button on the Tartarus side, a stance he would have to maintain for the required twelve minutes the journey took, otherwise Percy and Annabeth would be vaporized by Thanatos’s safeguards.

As for the wounded elder god, he lifted dark gold and red eyes, one hand pushing himself up from the ground even as he started to generate – no matter how slowly – with Gaea’s chains and wicked bolts removed from his flesh.

The embodiment of Earth, Gaea had more than a little Life power running through her, pure poison to a Death god when they became contaminated by it, such as with metal forged and quenched in it forced through his body and destroying his ichor.

Weak – far too weak even to help one of his favorites – Thanatos _wasn’t_ too weak for one of his basic powers…summoning his servants as Atlas and Hyperion working together had Frey retreating before a massive blow knocked him onto his back and sent his sword falling from his weakened grip.

 _Clang_!

Atlas howled in fury as his killing-blow of the pestilent little shit that had slayed him was blocked.

“Hey kid.”  Alexios grinned down at a panting Frey as his lover Hector took on Hyperion, ignoring the Titan he was battling back, much to Atlas’s rage.  “Miss us?”  He asked in joking echo of Frey’s words to the Titans.

Taking a page out of Frey’s book, Heidi had ordered the Warriors to shadow Frey, counting on her clever little lord to lead them to Him.

But, divine rules being what they are, they couldn’t interfere until their Lord summoned them – naturally in the nick of time to prevent one of Alexios’s favorite mortals from becoming Titan-chow.

A phalanx of warriors were shoving the gathered monsters and giants back into the depths of Tartarus, while a handful of their female counterparts gave succor to their Lord, Alexios and Hector – being both who they were and with the powers they had as servants of a Death god in a death realm, were more than capable of holding off a pair of Titans as Frey climbed back to his feet and with a snap of his fingers had his sword and spear flying back into his hands.

“Very.”  Frey grinned and then gave a leer at the scant armor that showed off both warriors’ arms and legs to advantage.  “Great timing.”

“You know you just gave your father a heart attack, don’t you?”  Thanatos drawled with a weak cough from his position now propped against the Doors with one Harvestmaiden giving him sips of nectar from a skein while another cleaned and bandaged his wounds.  The Harvest Lord had no fear of his words being overheard – let alone understood – by any but them, not in a place that now that he was free once more returned to his dominion.

If he didn’t know better, he’d be suspicious that Tartarus himself had helped Gaea entrap him, just to have a bit of freedom until he was freed.

However, having the wicked escape him would be a massive insult to the touchy sovereign of the Plains of Punishment and rather contrary to his nature.

Frey just shrugged at Thanatos’s rhetorical question, then dove back into the familiar rhthym of fighing alongside Alexios and Hector, between the three of them eventually subduing the pair of Titans by the time Iapetus called out: “Safe!” and removed his finger from the trigger.

“Safe, for those two.”  Thanatos eyed the chains binding the Doors.  “But not for the Doors.  Frey, stop toying with those Titans and come help me with this.  Gaea won’t be defeated easily so long as she can simply recall her minions at will.”

Frey lifted his sword, giving a vicious quirk of his lips and said to the kneeling Titans:

“You heard the god.”

His sword swung once, then twice, and a pair of heads rolled off of massive shoulders.

A long moment passed, and the bodies stayed, as he’d been told by Thanatos before – what dies in Tartarus, _stays_ dead.

Snapping his fingers, Frey set the bodies a light, then sheathed his sword and used his spear to support him a little as he walked over to his former patron’s side.

“You’re getting stronger.”  Thanatos said in a low voice as his servants obeyed his silent command to return to the mortal realm and assist those there in dealing with the Doors in the Necromanteion.  “Too strong for a half-blood.  Two years ago it was all you could do with the help of two powerful half-bloods and a goddess to defeat Kronus, now you managed to hold off a pair of Titans single-handed no matter for how brief a time.”

“I know.”  Frey said, eyes dark with worry even as he took in every rune and etching on the chains.  “After this is sorted…I really can’t afford to get involved again until I’m invulnerable.  I’ve had too many close calls and near-misses on my heritage to risk it.”

“You’re not going to make me force the issue.”  Thanatos smirked.  “Good.  Because I would, if need be.  We finished this one last thing and then you’re done – in this universe at least.  Even Zeus’s protection won’t save you if certain of your enemies – of which you’ve made many on your own right let alone those from your parentage or heritage will bring – were to discover who you really are.”

Frey jerked a nod, then sighed, sending his spear back to his armory at Peverell Castle along with his sword and letting a ball of dark energy mixed with Death magic build between his outspread hands, Thanatos doing the same though their two displays had different colors entwined with them.

“Ready?”  Thanatos asked after several long moments, until the power was so heavy in the air that it made it hard to breath for his protégé.

“Yes.”  Frey sucked in a shallow breath, then they both lobbed the globes of pure power, one at each of the two anchor-points for the remaining chains Iapetus hadn’t broken by freeing Thanatos.

…

“What in Tartarus was _that_?”  Nico asked, eyes wide as the House of Hades shook all around him and the chains they’d been struggling to break suddenly snapped free, the Doors of Death disappearing.

“Frey,” Percy laughed as the servants of Thanatos surrounding them – even the ones tending wounds acquired before they had appeared to help the half-bloods clear the temple – cheered.  “And his Patron.”

“Damn.”  Jason Grace, Thalia’s brother and a Roman half-blood of Jupiter whistled under his breath.  “Now _that’s_ some power.”

All of the “seven” who had answered the call were familiar with the story of Frey, legacy of Thanatos by now, even if they’d never met him before like the Roman half-bloods.

“Believe me.”  Percy groaned a little as several of the Warriors exchanged looks and faded into the shadows – a trick he’d seen Frey do more times than he could count.  “You have _no idea_.”

Annabeth – as always – was there to help get them back on track.

“Gaea’s forces are gathering in Athens.”  She said, even as Heidi, who she was familiar with from her first years at Camp Half-Blood.  “We have to go, now.”

“What about the statue?”  Percy asked, referring to the statue of Athena that Annabeth had been tasked with bringing to the Camp to “heal the rift” between the Roman and Greek half-bloods…and hopefully restore the gods to their unified selves instead of the current split-personality ones that were currently crippled by Gaea’s powers.  They had sent it away with Reyna and Nico through shadow-travel when the servants of Thanatos had arrived to render aid.

Annabeth shook her head.

At this point, all they could do was hope that Reyna and Nico would make it back to Camp before war broke out between the two camps of half-bloods.

They were needed elsewhere.

 


	3. Three

** Doors of Death **

**Three**

**Mastering Death**

_Frey dreamed._

_Though not of Gaea, or Death, or even Thanatos._

_No, this time the visions were much closer to home – and all the more terrifying for it._

_He saw his father – but not his father all at once – with glowing blue eyes tumble off the edge of the world – and then with the green eyes he knew though dark with bitterness and grief and rage close on a dead world for the last time._

_He saw himself – but not himself – trapped in darkness only to step willingly into green light._

_He saw himself – truly himself – trapped again, though in a paradise…only to win himself free and return to children long turned to dust by age._

_He saw many things._

_Here – Sirius fell through the Veil._

_There – a purple-faced giant breaking his father’s mind._

_Now – blazing eyes of blue all around him, and his father’s dagger pierces his side with a sneer of “sentiment.”_

_Then again – blue, blue, blue – always blue, eyes, a box, a stone, the sea._

_Then came the last – himself, old beyond measure, still with a young face and a bright red scar, watching with cold eyes and a blank face as the world imploded, at last freeing him from his immortal cage._

_…_

He pulled himself out of the stream of visions with a gasp.

They hadn’t come with his sleep – not this time – allowing him to pass them off as a last-minute parting gift from Gaea or perhaps even Atlas or Hyperion, but while he was trying to clear his mind and use his Occlumency to help direct some of his power and ground it to prevent it spiking as was happening more and more.

Still, that hardly made them less unsettling, Frey rising to his feet with grace despite the tingling in his limbs from long hours cross-legged, crossing over to the water bottle he’d left on a singed coffee table after he’d arrived, taking a long drink then pouring some into his hand to splash over his face and help clear the cobwebs of terror the afterimages of the emotional visions had left in their wake.

“I thought I might find you here.”  Thanatos commented, stepping out of the shadows a week after he’d been freed with no small effort from the godling before him, healed by his long days “off” from escorting souls and doing his duty to recuperate from months of being trapped in Tartarus and chained.  He continued, despite Frey continuing to fiddle with the water bottle and avoid his gaze.  “I remember the first time I saw you here.”  He gestured to the ruined living room in Godric’s Hollow, where Frey had taken refuge to control his power in hope that the lingering death magic would cover his own spikes of power.  “You were up those stairs.”  Thanatos pointed.  “Silent, not a peep from you, just staring in shock those first few moments after _he_ had tried to end you.”

“Is there a reason for this trip down memory lane…or…?”  Frey asked, voice rough-edged and taut.

“You tell me.”  Thanatos extended his arms out at his sides, open palms facing the young godling.  “You were the one who chose here to hide.  You were powerful, you know, even then.”  He smirked at the scruffy face and wild, tangled hair as Frey padded over on sock feet to tug on his boots the mortal way rather than risk using his magics.  “I’ve no doubt that if I left you to the destiny the Fates had designed that Dumbledore would have had you bound within days if not hours.  You dreamed of it?”  He asked, though his tone made it clear he already _knew_.

“You know where these visions are coming from?”  Frey paused in shrugging on his coat, turning to stare head-on at the elder god he’d refused to fully face ever since they’d destroyed the chains binding the Doors of Death.

The _look_ he’d gotten in the wake of it…from both Thanatos and Iapetus had sat ill with him ever since.

It had been almost… _awe_.

And what kind of creature was he becoming that it would induce a Titan and an Avatar to _awe_?

“I made a choice, that night.”  Thanatos continued relentlessly, finally reaching out with one lightning-quick hand and grabbing Frey just above where his sigil branded his inner right wrist with the gold and black mark of the Hallows.  “A choice I have never once regretted, no matter what manner of trouble you caused me, or the squabbling over getting to visit you between my Warriors and Harvestmaidens.  Not once.”  Thanatos held up a finger in emphasis.  “Don’t start acting like a dozy cow and making me now.  Now, tell me.”  Thanatos let him go.  “ _What_ in my name has you hiding in the wreckage of your family?”

“I’ve never been one for visions.”  Frey told him, shoulders slumping.  “Never wanted the power that came with my birthright.  Never was excited about immortality like the others I was raised around.  But I’ve never _feared_ it…and with the things I’m seeing in my dreams…”  He blew out a shamed breath, looking away from those rich gold-orange-black eyes.  “And now I do.  By your own words, I’m becoming too much too hide.  What if I’m found before I gain immortality?  What if Odin figures out a way around the oath protecting my children?  What if…?”

“What if hell freezes over tomorrow and Hestia decided she wants a profligate like me for her husband?”  Thanatos interrupted with a much-more outlandish proposal.  “You can’t live your life afraid of the _what-ifs_ , Harry.”  He told him, using his non-immortal name for effect.  “Or else why bother living at all?  So you’re afraid of your power?”  He twisted Frey’s arm, sweeping back the sleeve covering the Hallows brand and letting it shine with unearthly light in the gloom of the ruin.  “ _Master it_.  You’re afraid of discovery?  _Don’t hide_.”  Tossing his arm away as if it offended his senses, Thanatos continued.  “Your paranoia will only grow if you _feed it_.  Could these visions be a punishment from one of your enemies…perhaps.  But they could _also_ be a result of you obsessing over what-ifs and worst-cases.”  Thanatos reached around and cuffed him upside the head.  “And for the love of Harvest, _do something_ about them!  Don’t just let your thoughts turn on your own mind and poison you.  Do you hear me, little godling?”

Frey rubbed at the back of his head, scalp stinging.

That had been no love tap Thanatos had given him.

But of everyone he knew, the Harvest Lord had always been the one to never pull his punches.

“I hear you.”  He dropped his hand and stared at the brand on his wrist a moment.  “I thought the Master of Death thing was a myth?”

“Mmmm.”  Thanatos held out a hand and wiggled it in midair.  “Yes and no.  You’re different – as much as I know you hate hearing that when you’re in one of these self-pitying moods.  I swear they’re from a you in another universe bleeding through, the little lord my Heidi raised shouldn’t have these issues.  What would be the rule for a normal wizard might not matter for you.  Or it might.  Either way…”  He smirked.  “What do you have to lose?  At least exercising your wizarding magics should help calm down your godling powers.  Apparate instead of shadow-step.  _Accio_ instead of teleport, etcetera and so on.  Bonding the Hallows should help, might bleed off a little of the Death powers you gained from being of my line and those your father possesses from being an Avatar that have been passed down.”

“It’s true then?”  Frey perked up at that.  “I thought it might be with some of the things I saw Kronus and Hestia do that aren’t normally in their dominion…but I wasn’t sure.”

“Part of the package.”  Thanatos admitted with a shrug.  “Almost impossible to kill – not that you had let that stop you with Kronus but anyway – invulnerability, immortality, and _power_.  Mostly from whoever has chosen us, but sometimes there will be a bit of extra too from the primordials if they’ve taken a liking to us.”  He grinned.  “Death likes Loki, so she gave him a bit of extra, and lo and behold, he sires a powerful death goddess who becomes Her Avatar in that multiverse.  Some might call it cheating but…”  He snickered.  “Death might be fair…but she also always _wins_.  Something you might come to know yourself in time.”

“How is that going to work now, anyway?”  Frey asked, ignoring the bait Thanatos was dangling in their verbal waters.  “My helping take out Kronus.  Will Time choose a new Avatar or what?”

“Who knows?  Time is implacable.  And only they will tell.”

“How do I master the Hallows?”  Frey sighed, going back to the topic had hand since Thanatos was beginning to fade back into the shadows.

“You might start.”  Thanatos suggested.  “By actually _accepting_ that they’re yours and were always meant to be.”

 


End file.
